‘Burial Ground’ or — An Insane Masterpiece of a Berserk Magnitude?
“Well, this looks total shit,” I found myself muttering as the opening credits rolled to Andrea Bianchi’s ‘Burial Ground’ (1981) as it was obvious I was in for a slice of low-budget scuzziness plagued by bad acting, worse writing, ugly lighting, cheap effects and potentially inept directing. Yep, ‘Burial Ground’ has a hell of a lot going against it.
However, ‘Burial Ground’ also does one very important thing spectacularly right and to such an extent it elevates Bianchi’s movie to the level of a work of genius and that’s the pacing because once everything kicks off it doesn’t stop for a split second. The result is deliriously relentless.
An archaeologist is investigating an Etruscan tomb beneath his villa when he is eaten by zombies. A trio of attractive couples, one accompanied by their freaky ten year old son, turn up the following day to visit and after having sex start getting eaten by zombies.
And that’s the plot. Seriously, there is literally nothing else story wise other than that outside of a truly bizarre relationship the son has with his mother, a ten year old boy obviously played by a fully grown adult for some baffling reason.
But when the zombies attack, which they do practically from the very start, this lack of any narrative restriction means the movie can blast along with the dizzying speed of a nudist streaker with the entire film consisting of nothing but ceaseless zombie attacks.
At several moments the trapped couples observe the zombies shuffling off after attempting to storm the villa, and its moments like these where any other normal movie would take a few minutes to catch its breath, flesh out the characters and take some time for reflection on the unfolding events. But ‘Burial Ground’ is about as far from a normal movie as you can get with Bianchi taking these breaks in the zombie attacks to surprise us with even MORE unexpected zombie attacks!
Not only that but these zombies know how to work together, climb buildings and even use tools. There’s one astonishing scene involving a scythe that has to be seen to be believed, although that’s nothing compared to the moment when the mother is reunited with her son and the reason why he’s played by a fully grown adult finally becomes clear in what is easily the most stomach-churning example of Oedipal driven violence I have ever seen in my life (I think the plaster of my downstairs neighbour’s ceiling must’ve cracked from the force of my jaw hitting the floor).
The characters are all also monumentally stupid but, again, this works to the film’s advantage with every daft decision they make only increasing the madness. At one point they’re trying to figure out how to keep the zombies out of the villa. Their plan? Let the zombies into the villa. THAT’S their plan for keeping the zombies out of the villa.
But that’s also where Bianchi’s other secret weapon becomes apparent and that’s his subversive sense of humour with his film playing with and subverting zombie tropes and clichés as well as winking to the audience “Oh, so you thought that was sick and messed-up? Then wait until you get a load of THIS!”
‘Burial Ground’ is a staggering, stupefying and miraculous piece of filmmaking and, just like ‘Hawk the Slayer’ (1980), proof that a movie doesn’t even need to be competently made to qualify as a towering masterpiece.
